Jan 12 2009
Why Guys Aren’t Asking You Out: Part 4
Here’s some stuff you might need to know:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
One day, when I was a little kid, my mom caught me doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. She asked me, “Andrew, why did you do that?” I replied, “There are no answers in my mouth.”
Parts 2 and 3 didn’t paint the best picture of guys. We seem like a bunch of bumbling idiots. I think a lot of us are! If you ask 20-something guys why we’re not dating, many of us will give you a response. Some may have valid reasons, but most of us should really be saying, “There are no answers in my mouth.” The truth is that we don’t know why we’re not dating. We’d say, “Man, I just can’t find any chicks who are hot or love Jesus or aren’t annoying.” And I know what you’re thinking girls: “Or whatever.” All this weak, passive rubbish from guys gets you frustrated or makes you sad but I’m convinced there’s hope – for me and other guys and all you girls!
Andy the Mechanic
When I was a senior in college, a girl friend (note: not girlfriend) called me. “Andy, my friend’s car won’t start and we don’t know what to do. Can you help us?”I answered, “Sure, I can help.” We made arrangements to meet at her friend’s car and hung up. My pulse went through the roof. “Holy crap, Andy, you don’t know anything about cars. Why did you agree to do that? ‘Sure, I can help?’ No you can’t. Now you’re going to look like an idiot. Ok, calm down. Just go over there. It’s probably the battery.” I Googled how to jump start a car (because I didn’t know how to do that) so as to avoid electrocuting myself, then drove over and met them, propped the hood up, and asked them to try cranking the car.
Click-click. Click-click.
The car wasn’t even trying to start. There was just a clicking noise. I’d never seen anything like it. Of course, my vast experience of filling up gas tanks and taking my car to have its oil changed by someone else didn’t exactly make me an expert. Not to sound like an idiot, I threw out every car vocabulary word I could think of. “Well, it could be the starter or the generator. I’ve even heard of it being the solenoid switch.” The funny thing about that is the place (singular, not plural) where I’d heard of that was an old AutoZone commercial where the guy had a bad solenoid switch. I had no idea what they did. (It turns out they do have something to do with starting cars, but I’m still unsure of details.)
Detroit Rock City
I was born in 1980 to a great mom and dad in a small town in Michigan, moved to a small town in Ohio when I was 6 months old, and then moved back to suburban Detroit when I was 4. By that time, my mom had given birth to my twin brothers. We grew up in the same house until we graduated high school. I went to college at two different schools and have worked in three different states since college. Needless to say, all of the people, experiences, books, and culture I’ve consumed during that time have shaped who I am today.
Socialization is like a river. Depending on all the variables in our life (people, place, time, natural wiring, etc.) we end up becoming the people we are today. It’s the way God has made things!
Socialization
You’ll see above that I was personally born into the world as a break dancer. I just break danced right out of the womb, impressing the nurses with my popping and locking skills. Actually, I don’t know how to break dance, per se. But it is a dream I continue to keep. Well, anyway, imagine me break dancing through life.
Breakdance
I’m rocking it out huge every day. The graphic above is attempting to indicate that lots of things are responsible for forming me and my beliefs in life.
A Stroll Down Billboard Lane
Question: as it stands in 21st century America, what is more important – our image or marriage? What’s more important in YOUR heart? If you ask me, the answer is clear. Drive down the interstate and take a look at the billboards. Get more hair. Remove some hair. Get whiter teeth. Get in shape and looking sexy (spring is around the corner, you know?). Get your varicose veins removed. Get a tattoo removed. Get a massage. Get a newer, nicer home. Get a new car. Get tickets to the concert or sports event. You’ll see that on a short 10-minute drive.
We consume ourselves with all of these things! Brothers and sisters, we are socialized into a culture that values image far more than the interior life (which includes our attitude about marriage). Too often the important thing to us is not marriage, but mostly how hot our potential wife is. Don’t get me wrong, I want a hot wife, but that’s not the only consideration. It probably (although I can’t force myself to say this categorically right now) shouldn’t even be the most important thing.
The Cool Facade
We spend so much time and energy trying to wear just the right clothes every day. We want people to like us so we study up on the cool music and cool movies and cool sports stuff and cool girl stuff. But it’s all exterior. Most of the time, this isn’t a problem. Because we’re so exterior focused, we get evaluated on our exterior life. So most people will think we’re cool. Ah, but relationships are not exterior! Relationships have everything to do with the heart. If we’re lacking in interior life, we will lack in relationships.
What time does all this cool hunting and image building leave us to work on the interior life? You see, it may be true that guys aren’t asking girls out for all the reasons I listed in Parts 2 and 3 (and there are certainly more reasons than those!). But the REAL question is deeper: Why do guys have those excuses at all? Why are money, commitment, a need for independence, and lack of vision problems for guys in the first place?
It’s because we’ve been socialized into this river, girls! We’re hearing different voices and observing different things than generations gone by. Our interior life has suffered greatly and it prevents us from being strong men and, as an end result, prevents us from asking you out. We have no clue what we’re doing! We have as much deep knowledge of ourselves and marriage as I had about that car I tried to fix. And since we don’t want to look like idiots by admitting we’re completely lost, we either flail about in relationships and make a mess (and this is REGARDLESS of whether we’re married or not) or us guys make life miserable for you by mumbling all kinds of weird things about solenoid switches and not finding someone hot enough or godly enough or whatever enough and then never ask you out.
I Like Ice Cream
Some of you are thinking, “Well, isn’t this convenient! Andy has effectively removed responsibility from guys for being idiots!” Back that ice cream truck up – I want a Rocket Pop. I’m definitely not removing responsibility. I’m only explaining the reason we’re in this mess. Part of that reason is we’ve been shaped to abdicate responsibility.
Paul says something awesome in his letter to the Philippians. He says, “Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Philippians 3:16). In other words, we should be the best us we can be GIVEN WHAT we already know. But that doesn’t mean we should stay in the same state forever. Remember what he says a few verses earlier? “[I have not] been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…” Now this applies to the Christian life much more broadly, but if that’s the case, then it also applies to this subset of the Christian life – dating and marriage. Guys must push on and strain to have a God-saturated view of the world. But we’re not straining toward that because we’re spending so much effort trying to be cool – on the exterior life.
Girls, when we do date you, are you now in a position to believe the most often used breakup reason in history? Guys say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” We’re not joking. We’re not lying. We’re confused! We don’t know what we want. We don’t know why we want it. We don’t know what to do once we get in a relationship with you. Let’s just be totally real – most of the time, we just know that we like making out. And we like how you make us feel. We can’t explain why you make us feel that way, but you do and we like it and so we go with it. And then the feelings stop but we don’t know why. We end up utterly confused to the point that we can only say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” (There are cases where it really IS you and we’re trying to spare your feelings, but tons of guys fall into the story I told.)
Maroon 5 has a fantastic song on their newest album called, “Nothing Lasts Forever.” One line of the song sums all this up: “If you don’t know then you can’t care.” Most of us guys don’t know. So we can’t care.
This Is Our Hope?
This is the hope I was talking about? This is good news? How can you remain hopeful, girls? Because as long as we’re breathing air, we’re still being socialized! If guys (and girls!) will seek the Lord to be re-socialized, everything is going to be great! Seriously. “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Many of you believe this already, but it is worth saying again: Girls, don’t let your hope be in guys! Let it be in God to change us guys! You can hope in Him and be confident! We’ve shown ourselves to be less than stable.
Tomorrow, for Part 5, we take a look at how the interior life of girls has been corrupted and also how guys can start to grow up and be re-socialized. This is where the hope is! If we know we’ve been duped, then the Great De-Duper (God) can de-dupe us.
Change socialization and you change beliefs. Change beliefs and you change behavior. Guys will go from dolts to colts. Hubba hubba. Aww, yeah! Who wants to get married? (That’s a rhetorical question. I wasn’t actually asking. Yet.)
In the meantime…
Girls. Please. Please. Please. Say a prayer for the guys in your life who are single. Don’t be condescending in your prayer, but ask the Lord to build us up. Most of us don’t even know there’s a problem. Even for all the words I’m writing, I feel clueless. Ask Him to do whatever is necessary to wake us up.
And guys, pray for the single girls in your life. Ask the Lord to grant them patience and understanding as He shapes our hearts.
Things between guys and girls changed over time to how it is today. The God who made billions of stars can make anything else He wants. He can make us the men He intends for us to be. But we must seek Him and just admit it: we don’t know what a solenoid switch is, we don’t know what’s going on in our life, and we need Him to teach us.
Here’s the link to Part 5.
I have enjoyed reading your take on this. I grew up in a different (ish) culture, because we were more conservative and homeschooled (I swear, I’m not one of those weird ex-homeschoolers that everyone knew. I was socialized and had alot of friends!
) I grew up hearing my friends talk about courtship vs. dating. (Which is quite possibly a term you haven’t heard? Basically, some forms of it, is dating with the intention of marrying. At least, that’s my understanding of it. Never cared about it, always figured the method wasn’t that important.)
So this being the case, now that I no longer live in that culture, it’s interesting to learn one angle on how normal society ticks in regards to relationships.
While I agree that some guys need to change, girls need to change too. For me, things always tend to sum themselves up back at Jesus’ commandments. What would happen if we treated eachother as more important as ourselves? What if guys were careful about girls hearts? What if girls were too?
I feel like there should be more to it than that, but, I’m not sure of the words.
Anyway. I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Okay, so I think you were right… this one was my favorite so far! Definitely more encouraging.
The part about wanting a hot wife almost made me lose it! I’m sitting in Wendy’s and all the old people behind me were giving me one of those “crazy young person” looks.
Anyways, while I am very much so wanting a man who is chasing Father Love with all his heart, mind, body and soul, I also want a guy who is hot! That is pretty important to me and to hear someone else say it in “public” just made my day!
Thanks for the reminder to pray for each other. Often I find myself frustrated and only thinking about me and how I was wronged. Talk about a slap in the face. I am selfish.
Many of us are so quick to jump all over guys with blame and we are full of self-defensiveness. I know, because I’ve done it… and I’m not proud. Andy has taken a humble approach to admitting fault and responsibility… and yet we girls are not always doing that. Thanks Andy, for being vulnerable and risking criticism.
There are AS many reasons we girls foul up relationships, scare off guys and/or sabotage ourselves from being asked out…(i.e., writing off guys too quickly just because they’re still working through the process. We tend to think that if he isn’t enraptured with us immediately [and actually does something about it], then we want nothing to do with him. We have the “Fractured Fairytale Syndrome”).
Anyway, I’m praying we girls will follow Andy’s lead and start to approach this subject with humbled hearts and loads of grace. After all, like Andy said, there is One who IS enraptured with us and IS doing something about it… and even when we turn our backs on Him, He continues to pursue our hearts. What more could a girl ask for?
My friends and I were just talking about this subject, when one stumbled upon your blog. Thank you so much for the honesty and humor you put into this. It saves us from having to gather this intel from the guys in our lives. I very much appreciate the Christian perspective as well; very well rounded.
From Amanda in MI.
First off, I’m thoroughly enjoying this series and have sent several of my friends to your site. I mean, who doesn’t want to read about the intricacies of guy-girl relationships to get through the first day of the work week?
Relationships are equally awesome and confusing; at the end of the day you’re still two individuals with your own set of perspectives, insecurities, weaknesses and struggles that are trying to understand each other. Getting to that point takes a lot of time, effort and yes, prayer.
Girls need to get better about asking hard questions of the guys in their lives (like you said in an earlier post) and living in a way that compels the guy to give them the respect they deserve. We’re all too guilty of settling for and expecting what’s second best. In addition, I know far too many girls that call all of the shots themselves which creates an environment where boys remain boys and are never compelled to be men. On the flip side, guys need to get better about trying to understand a girl’s insecurities/hopes/frustrations in this area of life and be more intentional in their actions. Both sexes could stand to ascribe equal value to the characteristics that are below the surface to those that are above.
Of course, every situation is unique but the core intentionality needs to be iron sharpening iron as brother and sisters through our words, actions and prayers.
That’s my two cents. I’m looking forward to the next post!
Good, good stuff! So much to ponder!
Thanks for the reminder to hope in the Lord…
I was hungry for this information! Thanks for your perspective. This brings more confirmation to my prayers for the future man in my life, and the lives of my friends, if that is the Lord’s will! It also brings more confirmation to living my life as a full vessel for the Lord, not waiting for the next blessing that I think would actually make me complete. The Lord makes me complete.
Andy,
This series has made you a famous blogger. Way to go. Back that ice cream truck up – I want a Rocket Pop, too.
-ap
Thank you for this installation of hope, Andy. You delivered!
I too often forget that we are an unfinished people. As the cliché goes, ‘God meets us where we’re at, and loves us too much to leave us there’. We are all in a lifelong process of growth and socialization and maturity. We are all flawed in the fact that we are forever under construction. Which presents as a problem when we expect others to be perfected, complete. Or even worse, we expect them to complete us. Thus, the “you complete me” syndrome…thanks Mr. Maguire.
It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the consequences of behavior. I should know better. I’m a social worker and if I can’t find the hope in a situation, I’m in the wrong profession. Also, what you’ve described roughly the equivalent to cognitive behavioral therapy (to put a fancy name on it) rooted in God. I’m all over it. And this kind of change works best when we believe there is a problem to begin with, so prayers for wake up calls and commitment to change is necessary and you’re all over that.
and back that ice cream truck up? that’s going to catch on…
thanks for writing!
This blog has been passed around between me and several of my guy and girl friends. And there is almost total agreement that you are describing the internal workings of men brilliantly. I personally appreciate your honesty about men needing to step up. While i know women play a role in relationships, men are the initiators, or should be. Unfortunately most guys waffle so much that women are left trying to figure out how to get to safety as if they were in an earth quake. Thanks for your honesty. keep it up.
Hi Andy,
I got to your series through Annie Parsons’ blog, and have been enjoying it immensely. I’m going to email this to my daughter, who is 16 going on 17 and is routinely disgusted with the guys at school.
My husband married me when he was almost 38. He jokes that he had “200 first dates and no second dates” until I came along, though we both know now that he was an exceptionally late bloomer. Fortunately for me, he was ready by the time I got to him and we were married about a year later.
AND – he prayed for his version of a “hot wife”, and God replied “Thanks for giving me credit for wanting to do something so nice for you.” And pardon my ego, but he got what he asked for.
The other half of the story is that he was dating a girl from his church, and she was a little plump and that turned him off. So he broke up with her (and felt very guilty – very shallow). Years later he ran into her at the store, and after three kids she was fat. I happen to know her husband, and he thinks she is beautiful. But she wasn’t right for my husband.
So, keep writing, keep praying. And don’t think you have to know the game plan before you start playing.
Bryn
Is this our hope? is definitely my favorite part. I mean I love the entire thing but I think that the begining of a person starts with THE ONE that made the person. God designed you so He knows what is perfect for you. He knows what and who to use you for. Anyways….off to part 5 I go —–>
Thank you for these posts!
Though now married, I spent 10 years (literally) wondering what the heck (well probably a different word or 2 at times of extreme frustration) when another dateless day, week, month, year…went by. I am emailing these links to my single friends. I have been able to give them some insight into the mind of men thanks to my husband who has made me realize just how different we go about relationships. This posts are hilarious and scarily accurate as to how we women often read into things (google and FB stalking as just one example) though maybe not all, I know I did. I have been laughing out loud and also think you need to write a book or have a seminar or all of the above.
By the way, the car example above is my favorite story so far, priceless.
this was freakin’ awesome! i have never heard another human being put into words, as well as this man did, what i often feel and know to be true. Good, Good, Good!!!
Just had to say that I was born in 1980 in MI too!
Good stuff.
Yes please hold a seminar…seminarS. National. International, even! Let them stream into every bachelor pad around the world =) This issue is pandemic and something that has puzzled me and my friends for years now. You’ve got some helpful insights here. You are the first person that I have come across who has been willing to sift through the mess and try to bring to light the why’s of the current sorry state of singles. You’ve articulated your reasons and solutions with care and humility and I think you’re right on. Thanks for taking the time to do all this “interior” examination. You’re right. The world’s values call us to be distracted with the exterior, and in the process we neglect reality, we neglect truth.
Thanks for being faithful to point us to the Lord Jesus, who is mighty to save us and change us! He is truly the solution.
Andy, I don’t know what you do for your day job, but you should definitely pursue more writing- you have been cracking me and my roommate up this afternoon just reading this stuff.
This post made me think of some teaching by Plumbline ministries I heard recently. It’s about how satan has been assaulting Godly families by divorce, abortion, moral perversion, and … dum dum dum… singleness. What better way to keep God’s goodness from spreading in our world: stop up Godly families. Therefore, work to keep people single.
Alot of your posts remind me of Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. If I were the devil, I would come up with countless lies to feed men and women to keep them from having the courage to pursue each other, which would inevitably, produce Godly families and more light to our world. I would plant in their minds all the lies some of your posts reflect.
In reality, if I could sit with Andy, I’d tell him I understand what you’ve said about all these different factors. I’d tell you, yeah, some of it has some basis in truth. But that stuff can be worked out, much of that stuff can be prayed about and the great and awesome Lord can just fix it, and the rest of it is lies we could figure out in a few minutes. And then we could get to know each other and figure out more what we think about each other.
satan’s good, but I think God’s opening the eyes of His people to start seeing the deception.
As singles, I think we should start praying for each other and our one-day spouses with “our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.” (2 Cor. 10:3, the Msg).
Thanks for writing these posts which also open our eyes. And thanks for doing so with humor and honesty.
And get writing more stuff, we want to hear more!
Thanks–Beth
I don’t like joining too many more facebook groups or applications than I have to, so I thought instead I would just read your blog. Good writing. Interested to keep reading.
And bemused… that car story wasn’t for MY house was it?? With Shannon Andersons’ car that died.. ?? We had a few people around to try and sort it… was trying to remember if you were one??
“Guys will go from dolts to colts. Hubba hubba. Aww, yeah!” Once again, pretty awesome!
I happened to stumble across your blog via google and am so grateful I did. Fantastic blog. Keep it coming!
Andy,
You’ve got great insight. It isn’t just you boys that have been socialized by the world in the wrong way, but girls too- taught to be seductresses; and how to change into what “we think” makes us more attractive. What a lie.
Reminds me of how the Bible teaches us to be transformed and in the world, but not of it. Such a challenge in today’s world- but yes, totally possible!
Great line:
“If we know we’ve been duped, then the Great De-Duper (God) can de-dupe us.”
So, we begin the journey of all finding our true identities in Christ so we can then…. partner up with someone else doing the same thing and; eventually do what we think is almost impossible to accomplish these days= make a good marraige!
Andy…you should have said the SUPER…De-duper….get it? hehe booyah
I wanna break dance too.
So true, after-all isn’t love about putting the other person before ourselves – serving one another? Although this is easier said than done, its still our standard. If we look at each other (meaning opposite sex) through the eyes of love/grace we can accept the person for their lack of perfection and seek to build the other up. I like where you’re “going” with this Andy – although you already “went” with this over a year ago, and I’m just now reading it, haha.